


What Was To Be Shown (QED)

by tgrjohfam (nerdloved)



Series: mathverse [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:21:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23743390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdloved/pseuds/tgrjohfam
Summary: “So. I like you. QED.”“Did you really just structure your confession as a proof?”In which Johnny finds out there’s more to math than numbers.(or Jaehyung swears Johnny really isn’t that dumb. Taeyong doesn’t really agree.)
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Series: mathverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1710334
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	1. base case: i. (part 1) -- the first day we met I dropped my coffee on you

Base Case(s)

  1. (part 1) -- the first day we met I dropped my coffee on you

( _ In mathematics, and particularly in set theory, category theory, type theory, and the foundations of mathematics, a universe is a collection that contains all the entities one wishes to consider in a given situation. _ )

Johnny descended down into Neo City the day before classes were due to start for the spring semester. His roommate Jaehyung and the majority of his other friends had already been settled in for the past week, having either flown in themselves or driven up in some form. Johnny was the last one to arrive back, but he didn’t really mind. He loved looking at Neo City from the plane though, imagining all the twinkling lights and people who all had their own individual lives that didn’t revolve around Johnny or the rest of his college bullshit. The thought was largely comforting to him. Closing his eyes, he could almost see his apartment now, and looking at the city far below the plane, he smiled. 

Neo City wasn’t really a place where people regularly smiled based off of Johnny’s own observations, but he thought it was a pretty happy place, all things considered. He had always known he would more or less end up congregating here at some point in his lifetime, with it being one of the largest cultural and technological hubs of the world. Having the privilege to somewhat comfortably call the city home seemed like an honor to him, like he was leaving his own mark on the world. This place was meant for great people, so therefore he had to be great too. Johnny shook himself out of his musing as he began to pack up his things and set his tray table back to the upright position. 

Once the plane touched down, Johnny sent out a quick text to his mom and to Jaehyung before waiting to disembark. The businessman next to him who had been talking to Johnny about the college he went to, UNCT, sent a half smile to him as he handed Johnny his business card. Johnny counted that as a win. The older man had graduated years upon years ago, and they had an almost not awkward conversation about the buildings and programs. Johnny wasn’t that great at reading people, but the guy didn’t seem all too disinterested in listening to his spiel about his research. Maybe if Johnny were lucky he would end up being CEO of some biotech company and give Johnny a 6 figure job. He pocketed the card gently. 

“Well, good luck in your studies,” the other man said as he started to make his way off the plane. Johnny nodded a thanks before letting another couple go in front of him. He still had a ways to go before he would make it to the apartment, and yet he was already exhausted. 

It was the late afternoon by the time Johnny stepped out of the subway station closest to his home. He sent another text to Jaehyung, and entered the first cafe he saw. (By this point in his college career though, Johnny had an extensive tier list of all the coffee in the area, so he had to settle for a mere B tier, but hey, he was hungry and maybe going through caffeine withdrawal so he had to make do with whatever he had.) Coffee in hand and a bag of random pastries he bought Jaehyung, Johnny hoisted up his backpack and began making the walk back to his apartment. 

He fumbled at the gate entrance before checking the mail and finally opening the door to their apartment. Johnny made a mental note to go to the locksmith again, because he swore it was getting harder to use his keys. The window was already open, so Johnny assumed Jaehyung knew he was home from the sheer amount of noise he caused when he was trying to get through the door. He still tried to be as obnoxious about it as possible though. 

“Baby, I’m home!” Johnny yelled out as he took off his shoes at the doorway, haphazardly throwing the pair somewhere near the entrance. The moment he saw Jaehyung leaning against a doorway with some dorkish smile on his face, Johnny broke out into a grin. Yeah, Neo City was a perfectly happy place, at least it was in their part of the city. 

“How was the flight?” Jaehyung asked as he followed Johnny into their room. Johnny didn’t have much to unpack as he started to unload his backpack, which was mainly filled with some random crap his mom insisted he bring from home. The only things that Johnny had really needed to bring back was his laptop and some select skincare items, which he delicately threw onto his bed. 

“The guy sitting next to me didn’t stop talking the entire time, but other than that it was fine.” Johnny finished unpacking the rest of the socks and randomly assorted trinkets his mom threw at him as he left, and made his way to the living room with his backpack, Jaehyung following. They talked for a while as Johnny unloaded whatever was left of his backpack onto the dining table. Jaehyung was a great conversationalist in Johnny’s opinion, at least to the people he deemed were interesting enough to have a conversation with him. 

It had taken the two a long time to start warming up to each other freshman year, mainly because Johnny and Jaehyung were bashing heads about every little thing the other person did. It didn’t help that they were randomly paired roommates and had both never really spent a day outside of home, and it especially didn’t help that Johnny spent more time literally anywhere other than their cramped room. It really pleased Johnny that their relationship had come this far, and he considered Jaehyung one of his closest friends now. It was a miracle what time and several drunk one on ones could do. 

Johnny opened up his laptop after the conversation lapsed into silence. He had stubbornly ignored every school related email he had gotten for the past couple of weeks at this point, save some of the more important emails he had to make relating to research (which was the only thing Johnny cared about), so he slowly began the process of cleaning his inbox. Jaehyung went back to the couch and started watching whatever video he was in the middle of before Johnny had arrived. Johnny sighed, there were a couple of concerning emails he probably should’ve addressed before he went off the grid during break. 

To: johnnyjsuh@nct.edu

From: alistaire@chem.nct.edu

Date: December 20, 20XX 15:45:22 EST

Subject: RE: Declaring Chemical Engineering

Hello Johnny, this is a followup to our conversation we had earlier this month. In regards to declaring in the chemistry department, you’re going to need to …

To: johnnyjsuh@nct.edu

From: song@eecs.nct.edu

Date: December 19, 20XX 10:30:01 EST

Subject: FWD: RE: Transferring to the College of Computing

Johnny, I think you would be an excellent candidate to transfer and declare a major within the college. With the coursework you have currently completed …

To: johnnyjsuh@nct.edu

From: ndlee@ls.nct.edu

Date: Monday, January 7, 20XX 09:15:33 EST

Subject: Major Declaration [URGENT]

Hello John, this is your college advisor Nancy if you haven’t met with me previously. 

If you’re getting this email, then that means you have reached the unit limit without declaring a major. Your account is currently under a hold and you will not be able to enroll in classes for the fall or summer semester until you declare a major. Additionally there’s a hold on any after hours building accesses your account possesses. 

Please meet with me or a major specific advisor so we can lift the hold on your account. Should you want to schedule a meeting follow the links below.

Best,

Nancy

  
  


Johnny had been doing okay so far in college, or at least he thought so. He didn’t really know what he was going to do, but that was perfectly normal for something his age to be like. The main issue was that he wasn’t particularly  _ good _ at anything. (He also wasn’t necessarily bad at anything but that was neither here nor there, because he figured it was a better thing that he wasn’t failing out of college halfway through the game instead.)

He was scraping by, and more importantly running out of time if the email from his college advisor was anything to go by. So he took a look at the courses he had taken to see what he could cobble together with what he had. After 30 minutes of intense googling on the majors of his college (why were there so many?), Johnny wasn’t really any closer to an answer for Nancy the Advisor, mainly for reasons that was his personality.

It was not a situation he particularly cared for, so he did what he was best at: ignoring all his problems in favor of doing something more fun. Johnny slammed his laptop together and abruptly stood from the cheap ikea chair he and Jaehyung had made at the beginning of the school year, and instead draped himself to where Jaehyung was, their (in Johnny’s opinion, kind of small) sagging couch, his legs sticking off the end as he stretched to his full height. Jaehyung scooted a little as Johnny laid his legs on top of the others. 

“Jaehyunnie what am I supposed to do about my major?” he complained, rubbing his head. 

Jaehyun did not nearly look as amused as Johnny would hope he would look. Johnny knew he wouldn’t really get any sympathy here because Jaehyung had been set on law since before he had stepped on campus. Instead, he gave Johnny more of a get your life together you bum vibe, which he could totally understand but was totally not what Johnny was going for at this moment. 

“I’m not a bum.”

“I never said you were.”

Johnny sighed dramatically and stared at the ceiling, mentally documenting all the textures and suspicious stains. This was all very complicated, and these kinds of life changing decisions were not things that he particularly excelled at making. When the time rolled around for Johnny to pick what college he was going to he had waited until the last minute and it was largely a decision he made randomly. It was largely luck that had got him this far, and he was banking on that to get him through the rest of college. 

However, it was clear that sometimes a trigger needed to be pulled on the random rube goldberg machine that was Johnny’s life. He just didn’t like how he had to pull it. Johnny knew he could roll with whatever punches the world delivered to him, but he had no idea how to react if he was the guy making his own mistakes. It was a stupid fear. 

“What happened to your comp lit phase?” Jaehyung asked Johnny as he turned off the tv, turning to face Johnny.

“Yeah but what if I want to study chem?”

“Then declare chem?”

“Yeah but what if I want to study comp lit?”

Jaehyung got off the couch, pushing Johnny’s legs off him, and walked out of the room, leaving Johnny to wallow in his indecision alone. He really hated thinking about making decisions like these. Maybe he should make a sandwich instead, so he dramatically picked himself off the couch and went to the kitchen. He could tell that Jaehyung was actively trying to avoid dealing with his bullshit, and he could respect that. Johnny just couldn’t let him do whatever he wanted though.

“What do I do?” Johnny yelled out, knowing Jaehyung would be able to hear him anywhere in the apartment. 

“This is the second time in 10 minutes you’ve asked me this question John.”

“And what about it, this is a legitimate problem for me right now!” Johnny replied easily, searching their fridge for the mustard. They were out of lunch meat, which is something Johnny should’ve checked before he started making the sandwich and something he made a mental note of for when it was time to buy groceries.

“Anyways,” he continued, “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do.” 

“The point is that you figure it out Johnny.” 

“Which is precisely the issue here Jae.” Johnny continued making his sandwich, taking a double glance at one of the more sad things he’d bothered making in this kitchen. A few beats later Jaeyung responded.

“Um, are you making a mustard sandwich?” Jaehyung asked as he peered over the counter to look at what Johnny was doing. In Johnny’s defense, he liked mustard and he was sure there would be something else to put in between his two slices of bread before he actually checked the fridge. All they had was some gochujang from last semester and other various condiments and absolutely nothing else other than the half loaf Johnny picked up at home to take on the plane. Johnny vaguely wondered what Jaehyung was living off of for the past week, but decided that wasn’t really a conversation he wanted to have right now. 

“Yeah, you want a bite?” Johnny asked as Jaehyung turned away in disgust. (Johnny distinctly remembered the same expression gracing his annoyingly beautiful face most of freshman year when Johnny would do something sus, and he honestly thought they were past this stage in their friendship. He guessed old habits die hard.)

“I’m at a wall here Jae. I have no idea what to do.” Johnny said, figuring Jaehyung could already guess all of this information considering Johnny’s been repeating the same thing over and over again.

“Okay, well fine. Just declare a major by whatever classes you did the best in.” 

“Yeah right like that’s going to be a strategy with my grades. Not everyone is a studying machine,” Johnny sighed as he forced himself to take another bite of his sandwich. He had long since accepted the unfortunate reality that was his GPA, though he at least could say it wasn’t as bad as it was freshman year. Johnny thought he actually could do a lot worse actually, but he knew that Jaehyung’s overall academic success was miles ahead of his own from the get go. 

“What do you mean, your grades are pretty much perfect you loser,” Jaehyung scoffed. 

“It’s definitely not”

“Listen Johnny. I don’t care that you don’t know what you want to do, or that you’re having second thoughts about literally anything you have ever studied because you didn’t get an A+ or something, but you are definitely a lot smarter than you give yourself credit for.”   
  
Johnny didn’t really agree with any of this conversation but stayed silent. When Jae said stuff like this, Johnny just assumed he had done a good job at fooling everyone around him when it came to specific grades. Johnny got up and sat back in front of his laptop. He was going to do it, or else he apparently couldn’t enter any of the buildings on campus, so he pretty much had to do it. 

He was going to do it. He had to, so he was going to. Easy. Johnny ignored the nervousness growing inside him. With some sense of finality, he opened up his email and sent some emails for logistics and submitted a petition to declare chemistry. At least Nancy would be happy. He stared at the sent symbol for a while, a slower and deeper sense of anxiety filling him before he decided to get up and take a walk. He didn’t want to go to sleep anxious like this. First day jitters and all that.

Johnny ended up at an empty playground near the apartment. It was probably something near midnight by this point, and he should be looking out for more suspect individuals at this point but he didn’t really care. He didn’t bring his phone with him so it wasn’t like anyone had anything physical to take from him. He absentmindedly drifted on the swings, staring at the sky. 

Johnny was itching to go to the liquor store and get some cigarettes but after the fiasco that was freshman year, he had promised Jaehyung he would stop and had largely kept his word. (There was an incident during the summer, but Johnny figured what Jae doesn’t know won’t hurt him.) Instead he just scratched at his wrist and pushed onto the swing with a little more force. He had no idea why he was so worried, Nancy had already told him he could change his major at any time given he could graduate on time. 

( _ “And with your performance as of right now John, you can graduate by next year” At the time Johnny didn’t really understand what she was getting on with the whole performance thing, but he thought he understood a little better now. It was a good thing. Probably.) _

It just was a lot to think about. 

Johnny knew he needed more direction with his life, instead of just doing whatever he wanted at any given point in time. It was difficult though, having to plan and deal with the consequences. He didn’t particularly feel like an adult, though he could tell when he moved into the apartment something was intrinsically different about the situation he was in. It wasn’t the tax forms that he had helped fill out since he was 15, or the cigs he would pilfer from Sehun in highschool that made him feel like a bonafide grown up, but instead moving into an apartment with Jung Jaehyung that did it. Maybe he was getting soft. If anything he had less responsibility than ever. 

Johnny closed his eyes and continued to swing in the dark. He had been there for some indiscriminate amount of time now. 

“So this is where you went,” Johnny cracked open his eyes after awhile. It was Jaehyung, illuminated by the shitty street lamp and the moonlight. It made him look even better than usual, and Johnny sulked a little at the thought of how bad he probably looked in his stew of misery and contempt. 

“Indeed.” he replied anyways.

Jaehyung took his place beside Johnny on the swings, and they swung for a while, ignoring the increasingly loud creaks the swingset was giving off as Jaehyung swung harder. 

“It needs some oil I think,” Jaehyung commented, examining the chains before he sighed and continued. 

“John, it's cold and I’m pretty sure both of our classes tomorrow start at 8am. Let’s go inside,” 

Johnny sighed. He already knew that Jaehyung could read him like a book, if his conversation about declaring before meant anything at all. 

“Do you remember freshman year?” Johnny asked. Jaehyung looked at him quizzically. 

“Don’t talk about it like it didn’t end less than a year ago. Of course I remember.” 

“Yeah…” they fell into silence. 

“Do you ever think about the future? Like the real future and not what dinner I’m going to make next week. Like, what are we going to do with ourselves?” 

Jaehyung contemplated the question for a little before answering. Johnny could tell he was trying quite hard to find an answer that would satisfy them both. Jaehyung had the annoying habit of staying true to himself as well as fulfilling and maintaining healthy relationships with others. Johnny usually just stayed in the habit of pleasing others, mainly through lying. (It was another reason why they clashed so much at the beginning of the semester, because Johnny was too nice and Jaehyung was too blunt. Johnny had thought he was living in a nightmare.) 

“Well, John I don’t think any of us can read the future, but I think the goal is usually to end up happy isn’t it?” Is what Jaehyung finally decided on after Johnny had spent some more time staring at his moonlit face. At some point during their freshman year Johnny would’ve collapsed at the thought of having interaction like this. 

“What an abstract answer. Serves me right for asking a  _ nonstem _ .” Johnny said, abruptly standing up from the swings. 

“Hey, weren’t you the one complaining to me about how you wanted to major in comparative literature? That’s even more nonstem than polisci!” Johnny stuck out his tongue at him before he tried to push Jaehyung off the swing. He was going to pocket this conversation away for examining at a later time, maybe when he wasn’t so pensive. It was time to bother his roommate anyways. 

*** 

Johnny was running late. He distinctly remembered his pact to not take an 8am after the trainwreck that was chem lab his first semester. It should be illegal to have a five hour lab, especially when the only options were 8am or 5pm (there was no way Johnny was going to be on campus doing work past 8pm, thanks).

He stopped running to completate getting a coffee, his fingers already brushing his phone to order an iced americano on the app. He checked the time. What could 5 more minutes mean in the grand scheme of things? He had a 10 minute grace period anyways, so he pivoted the other direction and started running towards the cafe he just ordered a coffee from, a small grin growing on his face. 

Once he made it, he tried his best to not seem as tired as he felt (Johnny made a mental note to go to the gym sometime soon, because he could foresee some more mad dashes for coffee if he had any intention of going to any of his morning classes.) 

“Iced Americano for Johnny” He heard as he made his way through the crowd of people in the small cafe. It was kind of strange considering Johnny was faintly sure that he was going to be late for his class, and presumably so were all these other students. 

“Kun! It’s been so long!” Johnny greeted as he finally (gently) pushed his way through to the counter. The other man in question just smiled warmly at Johnny as he called out another name. Kun was something of a mentor to Johnny when he first arrived on campus, and they had met at a language exchange meeting the first week of Johnny’s college experience. They meshed quite well and Kun had been part of the entourage that had slapped some sense into Johnny, alongside Jaehyung after they had patched up after their massive feud at the beginning of the year. 

“Are you not late for your class?” Kun asked, raising an eyebrow at Johnny. Johnny checked his phone for the time again and nearly jumped. He wanted to catch up, but if he didn’t get a move on in that instant there wouldn’t be much more lecture for Johnny to attend for the hour. 

“Bye Kun Ge!!” Johnny waved his coffee as he started to push his way out of the cafe. He mentally prepared himself for what he was about to do, and then began running across the walkway, dodging people and a few tourists. 

Coffee in hand (luckily sealed or it would be on the ground rather than in his hand), Johnny broke into a grin even though the burning he felt in his limbs were a lot more exaggerated than what he remembered. As he arrived at the building he stopped to catch his breath, slowing to a light (but somewhat aggressive) stroll. He usually made good time when he needed to arrive at a destination, and he checked his watch to confirm. 

“Man, 3 minutes? I really do need to start going to the gym.” He murmured to himself as he tried to get his heart rate down again, walking through to hallways to get to the lecture hall. 

Once Johnny arrived he stared at the doors for a moment, weighing his options. It was some esoteric math class that Johnny wasn’t sure he was going to stay in, mainly for the reason that he wasn’t a math major. He had just declared chemistry after all, even though the feeling of that major gave him a dark feeling inside his stomach. Johnny liked to stay just in between the state of not doing anything at all in his classes and going to class for sake of intellectual pursuit. The latter perspective had ultimately ended up with him in the whole major mess, since he had taken a pretty solid combination of random (but highly interesting) classes for the first two years of his college career. Life would've been a lot easier if he came into university like Jaehyung, eyes set for law and a clear goal in the distance. 

Johnny entered the lecture hall as quietly as he could manage and took the first seat he could find. The class was fairly small for UNCT standards (some of the lower division classes Johnny took his freshman year had a thousand students taking it, so it was definitely strange for him to be in a 90 student lecture). He checked the time again, and sure he was 25 minutes late to a 50 minute lecture, but Johnny considered his being there a success for the semester. He just hoped the class wasn’t taking attendance. 

The professor, an old man of a short(ish) height and thin build (Johnny thought the professor looked like a quintessential math professor, and was definitely on par for a lot of the other math classes he had taken at UNCT thus far) had evidently already started the “learning” portion of the first lecture. Johnny unzipped his backpack and began to take notes, as he placed his coffee onto the ground. 

Once an agonizing 25 minutes had passed, Johnny was thoroughly hooked on the class, but definitely not hooked on the teaching style of the professor. The only reason he hadn’t fallen asleep to the old man’s voice was that Johnny was actually interested in the subject, even though they were going over a bit of review from the previous class. Johnny turned the page of his notebook, examining some bullet points he had been confused about. It was almost certainly because he missed the first 30 minutes of lecture, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t confused. 

On a typical day he wasn’t really one to go and camp at the professor’s feet at the end of lecture, but Johnny was certain he asked more questions after lecture than most other people. He made a mental note of some things he had questions about, mentally organizing them in order of most to least useless, as he got up from his seat and made his way to the front of the lecture hall where a small number of other students were gathering around the professor. 

As he arrived at the cluster, Johnny nearly tripped and managed to catch himself before something catastrophic occurred. He grabbed the edge of the aisle seat, slightly panting as he realized he almost spilled coffee all over himself. 

“Yes, professor I had a question about the jump between…” Johnny began to tune out what was happening, slowly sipping his coffee and focusing on which question he was going to ask the professor. Absentmindedly he judged the quality of the conversations happening around him. The guy asking the professor a question right now was questioning something that was covered in a prereq, so Johnny personally didn’t see much reason in this guy asking the question. The professor seemed to be on the nicer side though, since he didn’t immediately banish the other student for asking (This is something that had happened to Johnny freshman year in an econ professor’s office hour, and he might have cried and dropped the class afterwards. He cringed at the memory.)

After the other student got his answer, Johnny began to step up to the professor which was when the catastrophe actually occurred. Like in slow motion, Johnny was aware of the coffee in his hand, the step he had actually forgotten to step on, and the suddenly growing brown stain on the other guy’s previously white shirt. It admittedly, was not his greatest moment, especially for the first day of the semester. Johnny forgot his question and the professor in that instant, and started to panic instead, since he just spilled the last fifth of his coffee onto this poor guy’s shirt. 

“Oh my god I’m so sorry uhhh shit I can pay for a cleaner or a new shirt or whatever you might need I’m sorry,” Johnny said as he got closer to try to assess the damage. He had been so focused on the giant stain on the shirt, when his eyes eventually made their way to the poor guy’s face whatever apology Johnny was in the middle of sputtered down into nothing. It was that moment when Johnny knew he was in trouble. 

There were a few problems. The primary problem was the coffee he just spilled over this guy, and the growing impatience on the other's face. The other guy’s face was the secondary problem, because Johnny was pretty sure he just cursed himself because this guy was actually an angel. Or a model. Or some muse a greek god or poet would write about. Either way, Johnny was screwed, because he was maybe the single-handedly most beautiful person Johnny had ever seen. And Johnny was roommates with Jung Jaehyung, who was someone who Johnny noticed normally turned heads on the street when they went out together. 

Johnny suppressed the urge to do something else stupid as the other guy’s face got red with anger and then prompty turned around, got his bag, and left. Johnny stood there, dumbfounded. He wasn’t really sure if this was all a dream or what, because the boy he just spilled his coffee on didn’t say a word or accept his money and instead just left. Against his better judgement, Johnny knew something had been lit up inside of him, and he began to formulate a loose plan involving the other 14 weeks in the semester and this angelic coffee shirt guy.

Johnny wasn’t really sure what else was going to happen this semester, but he was fairly sure that it would be more eventful than any he had experienced before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the first chapter!! I'm not really that happy with it esp because I almost switched tenses halfway through writing by accident but this is fanfiction so I'm not really going to stress about it! if anyone is reading I hope you liked it and if you didn't then sorry lol ): the longest fic I've written in my life was around 7k, because I don't usually write (i read a lot lol), but this chapter alone was already more than half of that fic! I'm hoping for all the chapters to be in this kind of indiscriminate length because I am having a really great time fleshing out the College Experience™. 
> 
> Speaking of college experience, this is really going to be specific to my university I think as far as some of the specific logistics go, though I hope there are some commonalities between colleges so maybe it might be more universal ?? idk man. Also I wrote this because every time I read a college au by a 16 year old I wanted to set some things straight about Being In College, which may or may not be addressed in this fic depending how much this story and the characters run away from me. anyways thanks for reading this mess


	2. base Case i. (part 2) -- the first day we talked i fell in love (and I spilt my coffee on me this time)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I have met the love of my life Jaehyung.” 
> 
> “Okay John.”

Base Case i. (part 2) -- the first day we talked i fell in love (and I spilt my coffee on me this time)

It had been several weeks since Johnny had spilled his coffee onto the Unknown Angel From Above. A couple things had evolved since that fateful Monday at the end of January, and Johnny was kind of disappointed he had to focus on his other classwork and research instead of trying to make amends (and eventually courting this guy). 

First Johnny had to plan some damage control for this guy he just accidentally poured his coffee on. He was good at making bulleted 10 list plans, it was the execution part that usually went awry. (He had a long list of bad ideas and plans that he went through with in the past, and it’s not really memories that Johnny wanted to relive) 

However, there was a small problem of Johnny’s exorbitant and immovable laziness when it came to classwork. It was a mixture of that said laziness and utter boredom during math lecture that finally made Johnny stop attending the 8am, and he says as much to Kun over coffee. They’re sat a cafe a couple blocks over from where Kun works in the mornings. (They had both mutually agreed that this coffee was better during Johnny’s freshman year. Johnny still thought it was kind of funny how they don’t go to Kun’s cafe though.)

“Yeah, so I stopped going to lecture because they don’t take attendance.” Johnny said, circling his finger around the rim of the latte he was nursing. This was their sometimes weekly coffee chat catch-up, that didn’t actually happen all too often further down each semester as both Kun’s and Johnny’s schedules began to fill with exams and classwork. 

“Johnny, it's the third week of semester,” Kun gently reminded Johnny. He looked more amused than anything else, which Johnny always appreciated because Jaehyung just rolled his eyes when he saw Johnny’s closed door at 8am. Or, at least that’s what Johnny thought he did since he was fast asleep at the time. “And anyways, wasn’t that guy you fell in love with on sight in that class?” 

Johnny sighed in reaction, looking up at Kun. 

“Yeah, so this is what I was getting at. I don’t want to go to class but I have yet to give this guy a new shirt and then my love,” Johnny lamented. 

“What about discussion?” Kun asked. 

“What about it?” Johnny asked back, confused. 

“Well, Johnny, is the ‘love of your life’ in your discussion? Or did you stop going to that too?” 

“Well, to be honest I only show up the first 15 minutes of discussion every other week to take a quiz and then I dip.” Johnny admitted, slightly embarrassed. It wasn’t like he wanted to skip all of this math class (except lecture. That one was on him.) It just so happened that the PI for the lab he was doing research in always wanted lab meetings during that discussion time, so Johnny just decided to bite the bullet and stopped going. It wasn’t like he was majoring in math, and he technically was majoring in chemistry (there was another plan Johnny was formulating to rectify this situation, but it was half baked and didn’t have legs yet).

Kun sighed, his lips quirking in exasperation. This aspect of Kun was maybe his favorite, because even though he got a lot of shit most of the time, Kun’s disapproval never bled into an area where Johnny felt like he had to go away from everyone. It reminded him of the way his mom would act, before he got all flimsy in high school and ruined a lot of what was going on with him. 

“Do you want my honest advice?” Kun asked Johnny, taking a sip of his iced coffee. Johnny nodded somewhat eagerly, because he also knew that Kun’s advice was probably something he should follow. (Sometimes. Johnny had a habit of also not listening to anyone.)

“Well, I think firstly you should go to discussion at the very least so you don’t fail your classes. Secondly, you shouldn’t do whatever 20 step plan I know you’ve already crafted that includes this guy you spilled coffee on, considering he probably doesn’t want to talk to you because you split all your coffee on him at 8am.” 

It was all good advice, Johnny had to admit. It also was all things he had considered before tossing away the idea like it was trash, though he knew it definitely what he should be doing at the moment. Johnny knew this conversation was quickly approaching the ever present “Johnny’s limit to seriousness and unfun” bar, so he only nodded and continued to take tiny sips from his latte. A moment later, he changed the topic to something much more fun. 

“So, how is your small but strangely powerful army of freshmen?”

It had been 3 days since Kun had given Johnny his sage advice. Johnny was going to ignore pretty much all of it, but had decided to turn a new leaf when his PI had rescheduled the lab meeting. (The conversation had gone something like this: “Hey can we meet an hour later?” “Yeah sure”) He bristled at the temperature, trying to huddle his hoodie closer to his body, even though he knew it was a fruitless endeavor. He and Jaehyung only lived about a 10 minute walk from the southernmost part of campus, which was also conveniently where his lab and thus all his lab meetings were. 

However, Johnny’s math discussion was almost on the opposite side of campus, and would prove to be another 10 minutes if he walked. He felt a small sense of deja-vu as he checked the street to cross, slipping his phone out of his pocket to check the time. It had been a little risky the last couple of times he had gone to discussion for the quizzes, even with the grace period they got for all their classes. Johnny would slide into class several minutes after discussion began, and one time he was entirely late and just had to finish the quiz in the 5 minutes he had left. (That wasn’t his finest moment, but it also went fine as far as quizzes went, so Johnny secretly was quite pleased that he got away with it.) 

He was running out of time, so Johnny began to book it for the room. He didn’t really go to the gym after he realized he should at the beginning of the semester, just like he didn’t really do anything of the things he had a mental note of other than getting groceries so he could live. Johnny burst into the room with a little less than too much fervor, right as the quiz papers were getting passed out. The GSI, who Johnny was sure was a perfectly fine person, only sighed and handed him a paper. Usually Johnny would slink to the back of the class where there were sure to be a couple of seats open, but as he surveyed the room the only seat that was available was in the front row. He sighed, hiked up his backpack and sat down at the desk, trying to be as quiet as possible since the quiz had already started.

Ten minutes later, Johnny wasn’t really sure what he was doing, quiz wise. He had answers, but sometimes an answer wasn’t anything better than a blind guess. As they submitted their papers, Johnny bit his lip, concerned. Usually at this point Johnny would leave the room, nodding briefly to the GSI and exiting the room like he had better things to be doing. Today though, Johnny had nothing better to do, so he sat back and decided to pay attention to the discussion.

A brief look of surprise flitted across the GSI’s face when Johnny didn’t leave the room, and he internally grimaced. That really was his legacy right now wasn’t it. He made another mental note to start going to class more, and Johnny could hear Kun’s pleased noises at this thought. 

The GSI began her lesson for the day, detailing concepts they had gone over in homework and lecture. Or, what Johnny guessed they were doing in lecture, since he hadn’t been in several weeks. He felt unprepared for discussion, not having brought much more than a shitty notebook he had been carrying around since last semester (that currently contained all his notes for the past year in all his classes… Johnny didn’t take many notes) and a pencil for the quiz. He slowly reached into his backpack though, and retrieved his ratty old notebook, the back cover on its last legs of staying attached to the spiral bound book. Johnny began to take notes absentmindedly, trying to follow whatever the GSI was doing on the chalkboard. 

“Okay so turn to the person next to you and discuss,” the GSI said as she finished detailing a long and complicated problem Johnny didn’t even want to think about. He turned to his right but the person next to him was already in a discussion with someone else. Johnny turned to his left, and to his surprise it was Mr Angel From Above. The guy in question also looked like he wanted to do anything other than talk to Johnny about this problem, and he looked to his surroundings as well, but everyone around them had already formed groups. 

“Well, looks like it’s you and me?” Johnny asked, wincing a little. Mr Angel just scoffed but didn’t protest as Johnny moved his desk closer to talk in close proximity. 

“Hey, uh, by the way I’m sorry about the coffee on the first day of lecture. I can still pay for whatever it cost to like wash the shirt?” Johnny said as he scooted closer. The other guy rolled his eyes, clearly still angry at Johnny for the whole incident. Johnny mentally revised his 10 step plan to get to know this guy. The current objective was for him to not kill Johnny, but it was looking to be a much bigger task than he anticipated.

“Can we just do the problem?” the angel said, cutting off whatever tangent Johnny had going on mentally. He swallowed somewhat nervously and nodded in response. 

“Yeah sure, but I’ll be honest I don’t really know what’s going on right now,” Johnny replied as he nodded. The angel didn’t really seem to be very surprised by Johnny’s admission, instead moving his arm so Johnny could see his paper better and with incredible clarity started explaining the problem and the solution. 

That was it. Johnny knew he was done for. Not only was this guy maybe the most attractive person he had seen, maybe ever, but clearly he also was a genius and a great teacher. He was Johnny’s dream man, and with more fervor than before his plan to get to know the guy became even more cemented in his mind. If this is what discussion had in store, then Johnny had to go. 

UNCT CONFESSIONS PAGE

  1. So there’s this guy in my math discussion who is literally the most perfect man I have ever laid my eyes on, to the point where in order to talk to him I’m going to act mad dumb to get him to teach me. If you’re reading this Mr Angel please talk to me not about math though ):

Comments  
Johnny Suh:  
** Jung Jaehyung Qian Kun** why did i ghostwrite this  
Jung Jaehyung:   
bitch i thought you wrote this

...

Kim Dongyoung (Doyoung):  
** Taeyong Lee** This sounds like ur discussion lol  
Yuta Nakomoto:  
did i hear discussion tea???  
Taeyong Lee:  
** Yuta Nakomoto **ya maybe if you were at the apartment you would hear it

Johnny nodded at the library staff as he entered the building. He made his way to the desk and got the key to the study room he booked, nodding again in gratitude at the library staff. Johnny didn’t really think he was qualified to tutor anyone in anything, and yet starting from the beginning of last semester, he had found himself in a room full of intro chem students begging him for help. Johnny blamed Yuta for the incident, but he was something of a pushover so he ended up starting his tutoring journey there. He secretly was also quite pleased to see the progress those freshmen made in chemistry, but that was neither here nor there. 

Johnny located the room with enough ease and entered, trying to be as quiet as possible for the other people studying around him. Midterm season was more or less approaching like a train with no braking system, and he knew sooner or later he would be also camped out in the library. He was lucky enough to not have started midterm season already, though he and Jaehyung had a slightly pressing issue that was a business econ exam in the coming week. Johnny groaned with the thought. 

“Sorry I’m late hyung.” The door opened, interrupting Johnny’s pity session for his free time and instead he found whatever was left in him to muster up a smile at his current student, Jungwoo. Jungwoo was neither a chem student or someone Johnny charged to tutor (“Johnny, you’re basically a math major right? Can you tutor Jungwoo? Thanks!” Yuta had dumped Jungwoo practically at Johnny’s doorstep one day, and he had kind of been stuck with him ever since.), so Johnny was periodically helping him out with some linear algebra and other applied mathematics, which wasn’t necessarily Johnny’s strongest point but he knew enough to at least help Jungwoo with homework.

“No problem, it’s not like I was doing much. How was your week?” 

“Yeah, it’s pretty busy with rushing the frat and everything.” Johnny stopped at that answer, expecting something more along the lines of an academic recap. 

“Don’t tell me Yuta has convinced you to join the frat,” Johnny groaned, rolling his eyes. He already knew the answer since it was Jungwoo, but he couldn’t help but feel disappointed, as if his own child had gone against his word. Jungwoo just laughed in response. Johnny had forgotten that Jungwoo had been Yuta’s first. (There’s also something more complex there that Johnny is pretty sure about, but he figured it wasn’t any of his business since he decided to start lofi feuding with Yuta.)

“Yeah, he told me you would react like that but Yuta wanted me to say that you promised to help him so you must ‘keep your promise Seo or I’m taking you down with me’, whatever that means. He said you would understand.” Jungwoo parrots back, grinning. Yuta was a bastard, but was correct in his analysis that Johnny had no upper hand, so Johnny just sighed and opened up his notebook instead. 

“So, when’s the midterm?” he said, changing the subject. 

“It’s next week. But hyung, are you sure you want to tutor me still? Yuta said you could do it even though you haven’t taken these classes but I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to.” Jungwoo asked, the concern clear on his face. Johnny had been pretty flaky before this point, which had been a far cry from last semester’s weekly check-ins with Jungwoo. It certainly wasn’t really fair to him for Johnny to just ignore all his responsibilities except for research, and it also was part of Kun’s sage advice to figure the tutoring situation out. 

“Yeah it’s fine, when I looked over the material earlier it didn’t seem like anything I haven’t really seen before. Sorry I wasn’t really doing much before this, I got caught up with other stuff. I think for this semester though I can’t tutor you every week like last semester. Case in point how we couldn’t meet until now.” Johnny gave Jungwoo a small smile and Jungwoo nodded. It was good then. They were both on the same page. That’s another thing Johnny checked off the ‘Kun Sage Advice’ column. Jungwoo opened his notebook and they began the session in full. 

Roughly an hour later, and many esoteric circuits and current analyses for all of them drawn on the whiteboard in the study room later, they were reaching a natural stopping point. Johnny decided to cut the session there, in fear that the library staff were going to start buzzing the key for the room if he went over time of his booking. (On principle, Johnny tried to avoid as much conflict with the people working in the libraries as possible after he nearly got banned freshman year for eating in the stacks.) As they were packing up their things, Johnny had to ask. 

“So how are things at the frat then? Does this new potential class look good?”

“I think that’s a question better suited to Yuta, but there’s a couple of people he said you would be interested in. Though he also said that I can’t tell you who unless you show up to the house.” Jungwoo had been something of Yuta’s foster child from his very first semester on campus. Johnny wasn’t quite sure about how they met in the first place. 

“Not to make you a messenger pigeon Jungwoo, but you can tell Yuta he can eat his own ass.” Jungwoo turned a deep scarlet at this statement and Johnny broke into a grin. He hoisted his backpack and took a last glance at the room before they left, ushering Jungwoo out. They continued making their way towards the front desk, turning down the volume on their conversation a little even though the floor wasn’t a silent one.

“Um, not sure if I’ll tell him that last part, but he said there’s one freshman you would be interested in? There’s a guy he thinks you know because you went to the same high school.” Jungwoo replied to Johnny as Johnny gave back his key. “I think his name was Mark Lee?” 

“_ Mark Lee _ is rushing the frat??” Johnny exclaimed, receiving some shushes and glares from the general library audience. He mouthed sorry even though he was internally kind of annoyed because it wasn’t like this was a silent floor and then led Jungwoo outside so he could express his confusion more clearly. “Like, 5 foot 2 tiny baby Mark Lee?” 

Jungwoo looked surprised at Johnny’s outbursts. It made sense though, because he doesn’t really think Jungwoo had seen Johnny be truly so emotional for anything other than coffee. (He certainly did not show too much enthusiasm when it came to linear algebra.) “Well, I don’t think he’s 5’2 but yeah his name is Mark Lee. He’s cute and the brothers like him. I think he’s getting a bid. Why are you like that though?” Jungwoo gestured to Johnny’s whole demeanor, which was currently in deep thought about what went wrong for Mark in his absence where he would fall prey to a goddamn academic frat. 

“I knew him a long time ago, and it truly pains me to say that Yuta has won this round. I might actually end up at the frat this semester.” Jungwoo looked excited at Johnny’s words. They had really gotten a lot closer, all things considered. 

“Wow! Mark Lee is _ that _ important?” Jungwoo exclaimed. Johnny just sighed in response, wrapping his arm around Jungwoo’s shoulder. He began to slowly drag Jungwoo away from the entrance of the library. 

“I don’t even want to think about this. Do you want to get coffee Woo?” 

Johnny had augmented his original plan, since it had been another week and Mr Angel still hadn’t told him his name (Johnny also technically hadn’t told the other his name, but that wasn’t the focus here) or talked to Johnny about anything other than the long and arduous proofs they did in discussion. Johnny had been attending discussion on a regular basis, or he had decided to, which was a clear improvement from his past behavior if the cool look of surprise the GSI gave him when he showed up last week on a non quiz day, on time and coffee in hand. (It hadn’t been Kun’s shift at the cafe which was information Johnny had known but forgotten so he was left with B tier coffee and no catch up.) 

He had taken a seat next to the other boy, giving him a bright smile. Though Johnny was unsure of his success because it was the type that Jaehyung called his “business formal smile”, but he figured it was worth an attempt anyways. They had reached a natural pause in the conversation, Johnny still having not participated too much in terms of contributing to group problems. He took this time as an opportunity to accomplish bullet point one of his plan.

“Listen, I know we got off to a bad start, and this might be totally awkward but what’s your name? I need someone to cite as my carry when I end up passing this class.” Johnny smiled, as the other guy looked at him expectantly. 

“Taeyong,” he said after a moment, clearly having just weighed the option of not telling Johnny his name. 

“Well Taeyong, I’m Johnny. Nice to meet you,” Johnny said, sticking his hand out. Taeyong stared at it like Johnny was an alien before tentatively taking his hand. Johnny considered it a win. 

“What year are you?” Johnny asked after their brief handshake. He was planning on doing the whole introduction spiel if he could get away within the five minutes he had before the GSI would ask for their attention again.

“I’m a sophomore,” Taeyong responded. 

“Oh, me too! Are you a math major? I feel like that’s a pretty stupid question because this class is pretty much for math majors but I mean I don’t want to make any assumptions.” 

“No, I’m just a pure math major.” Taeyong replies easily to whatever word major vomit was coming out of Johnny’s mouth, one side of the mouth quirked up into a smile. Johnny tried to keep his composure as he internally screamed in reaction. He was checking off so many boxes on the plan. (Johnny had thought getting a whole smile out of Taeyong would take another couple of weeks at the very least, involving an elaborate scheme in which Johnny was going to get Taeyong to become his tutor. He wasn’t sure if he was going to keep this plan.) Johnny was about to ask more questions when Taeyong stopped him, looking at him dead in the eyes.

“Listen, I don’t really know what your plan or thing is since you keep on sitting next to me, but I’m not interested. So like, we can just do the problems if you want, but I’m not going to do whatever thing you want me to do.” Taeyong said, totally killing Johnny’s thought processes. Johnny’s mouth dropped open and he tried to close it several times, looking like some sad mimicry of a fish that was desperately trying to swim on land. The was only saved when the GSI brought everyone back to her attention, and Johnny quietly scooted back into his row, away from Taeyong.

The rest of discussion occurred in silence, at least to Johnny, the patterns and words the GSI was writing on the blackboard floating away in his brain to somewhere else that wasn’t his immediate focus. Before he knew it the class was over, and he instantly stood to leave.

“Johnny please don’t forget your quiz again,” the GSI reminded him, as Johnny made his way to the door. As he went to retrieve his quiz (in the expectant hands of the GSI, which was kind of sus because she never personally passed out quizzes to anyone but Johnny) so he could leave as fast as humanly possible, Johnny spotted a red 9/9 circled on Taeyong’s quiz. Damn, this guy really was the dream, it was just too bad he apparently still hated Johnny and had no intentions in stopping. He had a lab meeting to catch after discussion though, so he stored this new and very important development for later consideration, shaking his head to stop the thoughts from floating in his mind. He was right out of the door when he tripped and spilled his iced americano all over his quiz and shirt. Everywhere really. Johnny stood there, frowning before he bent down and picked up his now completely soaked quiz (Johnny still had no idea what score he got, but it was too late to read it now.) 

Johnny thought he heard Taeyong’s scoff as he made his way to the trash to throw his quiz and empty coffee cup away, but when he turned around the hallway was too full for him to tell. Fate really was cruel. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> howdy this chapter might have some tense issues and i've read over it I think once or twice already but that was at 4am so it might get edited at some point in a little more depth!
> 
> also hnnng lmk if that middle section social media interlude worked,, it's supposed to emulate facebook (yeah im uncool and so is everyone in this fic. at my uni we use facebook a lot tho ;^;) LMAO
> 
> ngl after this base case the proof gets a little wonky in terms of it actually being a proof so yeah this is as good as it gets. johnny has a real storm comin™ (so does taeyong ehehehe) next update might take awhile ): but i miss being at irl college and seeing people so ive been venting about specific things i miss in this fic so it might actually be sooner than later if u have read thru this mess then thanks u have my eternal gratitude

**Author's Note:**

> this is a college au about math but mainly college because I am lonely and miserable at home. updates will be slow! sorry!! ): also the writing is gonna be a wreck because I write the chapters when it's 3am and im in bed on my phone sometimes so it's um not too coherent sometimes. Note that this fic is fully outlined so it will eventually be completed!


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